Furious Scottsville residents say they’ve been waiting for the City of Cape Town to repair potholes in their street for the past 20 years.
The mense of Morgenster Street say they are dik of waiting after having logged countless complaints and calls.
The street is situated next to a busy industrial area and has become an easy access point for motorists due to a boundary wall separating it from the residential area.
Ettiene Swain, 44, says he goes there every day to visit his in-laws.
“I need to use this street daily, it’s a nightmare and is really damaging my car all the time, but I have no other way but to take this street to reach them.
“We last logged a call in September 2020 and just got another reference number to add to the load we have been collecting over the years.”
Gerelda Moolman 33, has been living in the street all her life and says: “For 20 years, we have had this pothole issue.
“Do you know how embarrassing it is when someone gives me a lift home and I have to remind them constantly to mind the gaps and holes in the street or rather take another route?”
Gerelda says her father used to be a ward councillor in another area and tried to get the council to fill the gatte.
“He died last year, nothing has ever been done. They (council workers) come to inspect the street, throw a little tar into the gaps and leave for a few months until we have to make calls again.
“We need them to lift the entire road and replace it with new tar. This street is finished, it’s too much now.”
Gerelda says “hundreds” of cars, trucks and courier vans use the broken boundary wall entrance to access the area from Okavango Road.
“Usually, when the boundary wall was up, you would have to drive a long way around to get into Scottsville, but since that’s broken, people use this as an entrance and exit.”
The City's Mayco member for Transport, Felicity Purchase, says they are aware of the problem.
“These potholes are still a remainder of the backlogs experienced by our roads depots after a very wet winter last year together with the months of a hard lockdown in 2020.”
She says in January, they commenced with phase two of the “pothole eradication programme” and were in the final stages of appointing a contractor.
Purchase did not say why it has taken 20 years for the City to respond to the residents’ plight.